


Geborgenheit

by rostropovich



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, the train ride home essentially
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 16:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16043804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rostropovich/pseuds/rostropovich
Summary: geborgenheit: to feel completely safe, like nothing could ever harm you; security, comfort, trust, satisfaction.





	Geborgenheit

Tommy can’t tell if it’s the pilled upholstery that smells like cigarettes or him as he puts his feet on the bench and turns his back to the window. There are sores on his knuckles and oil slicking behind his ears and staining his skin. Sand chafes between his toes, trapped in wet socks. The smell of body odour and salt and metal wreathes him as he settles.

There have been times in the past when Tommy lies awake, staring at matte ceilings for hours until the virgin sun gleams stripes across his face. The adrenaline lingers in his blood long after the battle has been fought, regardless if they have won or lost. The feeling of shells rumbling as they hit the ground rattles his bones, the screams of men reverberate through his heart. There is little silence to be had. 

And if not that, then the aches in his joints from sprinting across fields, of cowering beneath tables for hours until the bombs stop keep him from rest. And if not that, then the hunger pains. and if not that, then the gangrene or the flesh wounds or the fear or the letters he must pen home ( half in English, half in Slovak ).

Perhaps it is the false comfort of being on British soil at last, but respite comes easily to Tommy. The train huffs as it pulls away from the station, as if the weight of the war lingers on its black, metal shoulders. Somewhere at the docks, a boat honks. Some men on the train cheer. Tommy doesn’t know why.

The locomotive and cars begin to pick up speed, the wheels rattling on the track and the car rhythmically moving back and forth. If it weren’t for the _clickety - clack! clickety - clack!,_ he might’ve thought he was still on the ocean. On _M_ _oonstone_. The little 30 foot yacht with a strong jawed old man at the helm and a wide eyed boy at his side and a dead one down below deck bleeding out and a pilot to boot. _Clickety- clack!_

Tommy’s fingers wiggle out a vibrato on the rough upholstered bench. Absentmindedly, he wonders how poor his playing has become in the long months that he’s been without a viola. The savagery of musical competition no longer bears the same weight it once did to him anymore. Of course, the war has changed his perceptions on things, but it has also widened his view of what constitutes as “living”. Born into a family of financial royalty, to spend any less than a hundred pounds in a day was to tighten their belts. He earns two shillings a day now, simply by staying alive to die another day. His body is broken and filthy and he does what he can to survive. Living is just a commodity. Tommy realises that he could be last chair in any symphony and feel the same satisfaction as he would as principal violist.

The train horn sounds once, twice, as they pass a station. It’s nothing more than a wooden platform out in the middle of nowhere.

The sound of Spitfires in a row rumbling above is all that can be heard, save the sound of the train wheels on the rails and the occasional gust of wind skittering across the moors. Tommy isn’t sure when he drifts away, but eventually he does. It’s the best sleep he has for a long time.


End file.
